Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Mock The Weak: Why Frankie Boyle Isn't Funny Anymore

Frankie Boyle likes making jokes about the physical appearance of others

Frankie Boyle thinks chavs are poor. Frankie Boyle thinks that pre-cancer Jade Goody was fat. Frankie Boyle thinks Susan Boyle (no relation) is unattractive. These are just some of the oh-so-conventional opinions we can glean from the first two episodes of Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights, brought to you by Channel 4 and a comedian who has forgotten he's meant to be funny, not 'shocking'.

Boyle's latest vehicle is his first TV outing since leaving satirical panel show Mock The Week, where he fell foul of BBC bosses by claiming Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington resembled "someone who’s looking at themselves in the back of a spoon". He'd also courted controversy by saying Queen Elizabeth was "now so old" that her "pussy is haunted". Both of these jokes were shocking because they targeted people who are national icons, and mocked their physicality. But were they funny?Maybe not, though plenty of others definitely were.

Tramadol Nights is a twenty-five minute show, containing two minutes of introductory insulting of audience members, several minutes of standup, and about fifteen minutes of bizarre sketches. Last night's episode had a group of Glasgow children torturing a furry character from a kids' TV programme, and a young girl with the face of an old man walking in on her parents using her massive dildo. What was supposed to be funny - rather than disturbing - about all this is far from clear. If you didn't see the first week, it would be difficult to believe week two was actually an improvement on a seemingly eternal 'Knight Rider is mentally ill' reimagining, and a horrible Green Mile 'spoof', where the condemned black man cured illness by "fucking" the afflicted.

What makes Tramadol Nights such a disappointment is the fact that Boyle is actually very politically savvy. Because Mock The Week had a topical quiz element, he could occasionally show his more thoughtful side. Though the humour was still blacker than black, he demonstrated that he was an intelligent man who engaged with the week's news, and often derided the pretensions of the rich and powerful. When Tony Blair was worried about his 'legacy' as Prime Minister, Boyle was in no doubt that Blair "will be remembered as a mass murdering bastard. In one hundred years, he'll be a fairytale Iraqi parents will tell to scare their kids." He was extremely concerned about the state of the environment spinning out of control ("we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death"). He was also angered when the BBC apologised for a joke about the Israeli occupation of Palestine ("a cake" that is "being punched to pieces by an angry Jew").

Questions have to be asked. Is he "horrified" by the very sight of Adlington and Susan Boyle? Is he "horrified" by some people being slightly overweight? Is he "horrified" by black sexuality? Or is he - for all his 'edginess' - playing things very safe, by attacking those who are often marginalised? Why isn't he sticking it to Israel now he apparently has the chance? Is Tramadol Nights just nihilistic vulgarity for the sake of a payday?

Jimmy Carr has said that analysing comedy is a bit like dissecting a frog, because "Few people are interested and the frog dies in the process." However, it can be done if you're that way inclined. It's one thing to attack "political correctness" - the 'moral' norms of the establishment - but comedians have to go beyond this if they are going to make most of us laugh. Especially in these times of great economic crisis and naked political corruption, people increasingly want to see those at the top - rather than those scraping along the bottom - cut down to size. In Tramadol Nights, Frankie Boyle is tickling the debased funnybones of a shrinking audience.